Doctors Might Need Bodyguards, If These Fights Are Any Indication

The public hospital experience can be stressful in China, we get that. You have to register — sometimes at two different windows — pull a number — sometimes twice, with a downstairs attendant and again with the physician — and wait — sometimes a very long time. But the number of videos we see of hospital fights seems alarmingly high.

In the above, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor in Wuqing, Tianjin finds himself on the receiving end of a group beating, reason unknown. In the video below, a doctor who refuses to prescribe morphine sends his patient into apoplexy: the man proceeds to assault a second doctor who tries to break up the fight. In both, you’ll notice an utter absence of security guards, whose presence, I find, is usually thin in hospital wards.

Maybe this should change. In September, a former patient went psycho in the hospital and started slashing people for perceived medical negligence. Once, a patient rose off the operating table to attack his surgeon. And of course who could forget this assault in high definition? Add these occupational risks to the fact that many doctors routinely see dozens of patients a day, sometimes in multiple locations, and are constantly under pressure to prescribe medication, and one wonders why anyone would ever want to enter this profession in this country.